Death Dance (14 page)

One hundred years ago, when Adolph Ochs moved his daily
newspaper to this midtown site known as Long Acre Square, it was
renamed Times Square in honor of the great publication. This once
elegant residential neighborhood had given way to what were then called
silk-hat brothels, and when railway hubs and subway stations made the
area the commercial center of Manhattan, the theater district followed
here soon after.

This time there was no yellow crime-scene tape. Uniformed cops
had cordoned off the hot zone with orange no-parking cones and three
Con Ed trucks blocked off the entrance to the street as workmen
scrambled to repair the damage.

"Works on the same principle as Old Sparky," Mike said,
referring to the electric chair at Sing Sing that had not been used
since 1963. "One good jolt and you're off to meet the devil. Joe should
have known those friggin' velvet slippers wouldn't have grounded him."

One of the cops led us to the chief of the crew, who was
explaining the problem to a couple of guys from the mayor's office. We
introduced ourselves and joined the conversation.

"What does it look like?" Mike asked.

The Con Ed crewman pointed to the apparatus down on the street
across from the marquee of the Belasco Theatre at 111 West 44th Street.
"It's that junction box. Another damn maintenance situation. Improper
insulation."

One of the mayor's men was already doing the math. "This'll
cost the city a few million. Shit. It's only the first quarter of the
year and we've already had more than forty complaints about hot spots.
That's way ahead of last year."

"How does it happen?" I asked. "I mean these accidents."

"The wires in the boxes, ma'am, they're supposed to have two
layers of insulation, one made with plastic tape and the other with
rubber. When the rubber wears off, the exposed end of the wire comes
into contact with the metal frame on the service box."

"The manhole cover?" Mike asked.

"Looks like about fifty-five volts of electricity ran up the
side of the box to the plate—the manhole
cover—above it. More than enough to kill you."

"You got more of these?"

"Two hundred fifty junction boxes in the city."

"Any other deaths?" Mike asked. "I haven't; seen one of these
before."

The guy from the mayor's office, who was measuring civil
law-suits if not human lives, answered. "A month ago they had one
downtown. Manhattan South responded. Woman walking her dog in the East
Village. This seems to be the season."

"Why's that?"

"There was a lot of snow this winter," the Con Ed man said.
"When the city salts the streets, the cable insulation corrodes and
cracks."

The mayor's representative shook his head, not willing to
shoulder the liability for the anticipated lawsuit. "Salt is not the
reason Joe Berk died. That last service box was too small and crammed
too full of cable. It pushed those wires to the top, snapped them, and
electrified the whole thing. You should have had a limiter in there."

"What's that?"

"It's like a fuse," he said, answering Mike before continuing
to excoriate the Con Ed chief. "When's the last time this box was
inspected? You haven't got enough workmen on the street and you haven't
developed an adequate way to test the manholes."

"Forty complaints?" Mike asked. "You don't mean forty people
have died."

"No, no, no. Hot spots. Electrified metal utility covers like
this or even on areas of sidewalk. Usually it's only twenty or thirty
volts— enough to give you a good scare or bounce a dog in the
air. People call them in every week. Wastes a hell of a lot of our time
because these hard hats can't get it through their hard heads to fix
the problem."

Mike stepped away from the huddle and we walked around the
orange cones, crossing the street to the front of the Belasco, its wide
facade of warm red brick set off by the white stone pediments of its
neo-Georgian architectural style.

Another rookie cop stood at the door that led upstairs to Joe
Berk's apartment. Mike flashed his badge. "Anybody inside?"

"There was a gentleman with Mr. Berk when he went down in the
street. Might even be his son. He went back upstairs when the ambulance
took off with Berk. Said he had to make some calls, then headed over to
the hospital. I asked him to leave the key with me. There's nobody up
there right now."

"Good thinking. Ms. Cooper and I are going to take a look
around."

The kid passed over the key. We walked to the elevator in the
rear of the building and took it up to the fourth floor, which was as
high as it went, letting ourselves in to the dead man's quiet apartment.

The room we entered was the office in which we'd talked to
Berk yesterday afternoon. The dark oak paneling on the walls and
ceilings took on a somber cast now, and all Mike could find for
lighting was the single bulb of the desk lamp.

"We're looking for… ?"

"Anything to link Joe to Galinova. Anything to point us in
another direction, in case he didn't really deserve that last blast of
energy as his final send-off."

"So how do you feel about a search warrant, Detective Chapman?"

"The mope is dead. Why? He's still got standing in a court of
law? Clarence Thomas is gonna go out on a limb on this one?" Mike had
put his rubber gloves on and was pushing and lifting pieces of paper on
Berk's large desk. He tossed another pair to me. "You can just stare at
me and continue to be useless or you can poke around here."

I pulled the latex over my fingers and reached for several
small manila envelopes that Mike removed from his jacket pocket.

He pointed at the lounge chair. "You want those long white
hairs, don't you?"

"1 won't be able to use anything I take out of here in Talya's
case, if that's what you're suggesting."

"Abandoned property, Coop. Guy passes on and leaves staff
behind. Think of the poor cleaning lady who has to pick up after him.
You're doing her a favor. C'mon. Help yourself."

I brushed some loose strands into the envelope and put it in
the pocket of my jeans.

Mike handed me a memo pad with a "to do" list for Monday, the
following morning.

There was a list of names and phone numbers, meeting times,
and a luncheon appointment. I grabbed an empty sheet of paper and
copied all of the notations.

The correspondence was stacked in neat piles. One tall stack
seemed to be all about the settlement of a grievance between Broadway
producers and the union that represented stage actors and man-agers.
Negotiators had reached a tentative accord to avert a major theatrical
strike, and Berk seemed to be in the middle of the mix, refusing to
give in to demands from Actors' Equity and drawing the ire of union
leaders.

Another folder overflowed with papers on the upcoming Tony
awards, the equivalent of Hollywood's Oscars. The televised ceremony
was a couple of months away.

"Just make a list of these files," I said to Mike. "We can't
take this stuff with us, and I can't find anything at all relevant to
Galinova. This one's all about the Tonys. Looks like some of Berk's
shows are up for the big prizes."

"They make a difference?" Mike asked, opening drawers and
scanning their contents.

"No question about it. Winning an award usually keeps a show
running or fills up the house by introducing a new audience, so it's
got to help the producer. We can always get someone to give us more
info about the business side of the theater world."

Almost everything I could see on the top of the desk had
something to do with show business. There was nothing with Galinova's
name on it and very little that seemed to relate to Berk's personal
life.

Mike stood in the threshold of the room and called over to me.
"Check this out."

Past the door of the bathroom there was another enormous dark
room, with a staircase leading up to the second floor of the duplex,
where a balcony ringed the entire perimeter. The two-story height was
capped with a stained-glass dome. Around the sides of the room were
niches, all filled with Napoleonic memorabilia.

I joined Mike and we circled the floor, looking at the brass
labels on the displays. In one corner was a statue of the Little
Corporal himself, while other cases held his swords, his campaign maps,
and even his underwear. A burgundy leather chaise longue with the
emperor's initials was in the center of the room, and built into the
walls were bookcases that housed what looked to be a library of
theatrical works.

Mike started up the winding oak staircase and halfway to the
top, signaled me to join him. "I think I've found the old boy's
boudoir."

At the top of the stairs was a foyer that led into a large
bedroom. The king-size bed was made up with a plush set of linens,
Berk's monogram sewn into some kind of Crest on the spread and pillow
shams.

On the far wall was a display with four television monitors,
similar to the ones that cued the stage director at the Met, but
bigger. Mike parked himself on the side of the bed and picked up the
master remote control, clicking on the first screen. He changed the
channels until he found the Yankees game.

"Look, this is a waste of time," I said, switching on the
small lamp on the bedside table, looking for any notes or photographs.

"Tied up at two all against the Sox in the bottom of the
twelfth? One out, Jeter just stole second, and you're in some kind of a
rush? You got something better to do than this?"

He left the set on and clicked the next monitor. The image
came up but there was no movement on it, and Mike couldn't seem to
change the channel from the fixed camera view that was focused on a
white-tiled wall. He moved the remote to the third set and got a
similar shot. It looked like the same room from a differentangle.
Neither of us was surprised that the fourth set displayed a background
setting much like the two others.

"What do you think we've got here? Think these are his theater
properties?"

I stepped closer to the screens and kneeled in front of them.
"If they are, we're not looking at the stage or the orchestra."

Mike walked over and leaned in against my shoulder. "What do
you see?"

"This one looks like—well, like it's in some kind of
dressing room, doesn't it?" I pointed at a mirrored wall opposite a
sink, with a clothes rack that had a dress and a woman's blouse hanging
from it. "And this one's a bathroom. You can see right into the shower.
There's some mosaic design in the background. Looks like
flowers—maybe tulips. Same for the last one."

"That old bastard was sitting up here watching the showgirls
undress," Mike said, breaking out into one of his classic grins. "What
a frigging racket this is. Perfect business for an old pervert."

Suddenly, there was a loud creaking noise that seemed to come
from behind a doorway in the wall next to the bed. It startled me and I
grabbed for Mike's arm.

"What's that?" I asked, anxious to get out of Berk's apartment
before anyone found us here without any legitimate business to do.
"Seems like it's coming from the closet."

The grinding sound of elevator cables stopped and the door
opened into the room. The young woman who stepped out of the narrow
space hissed her words into my face.

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?"